Anguish
by Dauthi
Summary: He's the happy one. He's the one who talks too much. He's the pyro dude. He's slowly going crazy. - I wrote this when I was sorta mad...


Anguish  
  
  
  
"TRUE!" -The Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar Allan Poe  
  
  
  
Anguish! Anguish is the meaning of life! It is the darkness that covers the light that tries to permeate it! It is the bane of mankind, the despair that makes him give up, turn, and be consumed. Millions succumb to it every day, a brief spark of their life that dies to make way to many brighter lights. And when the spark dies, they will have become what they were meant to be.  
  
Dead.  
  
Insane, you say am I? Insane? Mad? I am not insane. People who are insane know nothing, see nothing, but their horrors. I see. I see the terrors of the night, but I am not insane. I see them, but I know them for what they are. They don't scare me anymore. I can kill them, one by one, slowly squeezing the life out of them...  
  
Who am I? You want to know?  
  
My name's not important. It is my story, my mind that is. Tendrils of fire circle it, insanity borders it, blood thickens, blankets it.  
  
At first appearance, I'm a jolly fellow, always up for laughing and jokes. Yup, that's me alright. I talk the most, because if I didn't, my friends would be in the silence long enough to see the monsters, to go insane. God knows I don't want them to go through that. I already sift through things enough. I have visions of choking them with my bare hands, making them cough blood, bruise them up...  
  
NO! I will not listen! I won't! I won't! Never! They are my friends after all. They don't deserve it. What were we on again? Ah yes, first appearances.  
  
First appearances. Very much different from first impressions. Yes, I still seem jolly and a clumsy clout for people's first impressions. Yet, if they look closely, and take many more observations, they can see a little bit of me through the tiny cracks of the shield known as a first appearance. But that's all they'll see. My appearance will still hold. I won't let it crack.  
  
I talk. And talk. And talk. Endlessly. Just so my friends will glare at me playfully and tell me to shut up. Just so they'll not think of other things.  
  
They get angry. Say I'm driving them crazy. But what do they know? Do they know true anger? Do they know what being crazy's like?  
  
No, I've never been in a mental institution. I knew how to keep myself in check, even when they first started hitting, fast, hard. Yet, for days I had a steaming headache, enough to lose all common sense and try to save everything, even when a gargantuan boulder was going to crush me.  
  
So. I talk to keep them sane, even if they say I'm driving them crazy.  
  
But who will keep me from going insane? From going mad?  
  
No one. Only one thing keeps me from being consumed by the anguish, the mortal terror. And even then, I am slowly drifting off in my mind, rumors of my demise circling around my thoughts. I'm dying, that's true. But at least this one thing will give me some last pleasure before I die, one last rope to keep me attached to my friends so they can steer clear of the universe of darkness, before I fall into the bottomless abyss.  
  
I'm away from my friends right now. Or else, how would I be contemplating these jumbled thoughts and organize them out? Or else, how would I not fall asleep on the blanket of darkness? I'm looking for it right now, an anchor to hold the last strands of rope before I rot in the endless graveyard of ones before me, with always room for more.  
  
A sudden Thunder Lizard jumps out, hissing angrily. Lightning rises in charges off it. Perfect. The others aren't alarmed. They know I can take it on easy, or at least be able to defeat.  
  
This time I choose to be silent, like my friends, for I feel more comfortable shutting up then jabbering endlessly as well. Strange, if you haven't broken my shell. The others might be wondering at the lack of a war cry and hyper shouts of hacking and slashing, but they won't be alarmed. They have long ceased to be since I started occasionally being silent when I'm fighting solo.  
  
I circle it warily, even if I think, no, know that I have better attack, and everything. It is better to be cautious, to make sure it's dead, then to be insane, or dead yourself...  
  
Suddenly, I lunge, bringing my axe above me. It leaves my abdomen open, but my speed is fast enough compared to the Thunder Lizard's so that I can go defend that part of my body if needed. It hisses, and tries to dodge my downwards slash. It doesn't bother to counterattack, as it already knows it will definitely be useless. It knows it's dead. Good. I like monsters that have wisdom, knowledge, whatever you want to call it.  
  
It's not going down without at least half-hearted fight though. That's not the nature of Thunder Lizards. It shoots a lightning bolt at me. (AN: I already forgot the Thunder Lizard's attacks, okay?) I don't move, even though I know I can be at least fifteen feet from where it will strike by the time it actually reaches its destination. Part of the thrill of battle is getting hit, feeling the pain, as long as you don't get killed. A bit like SM sex, I guess, only this is a matter of life and death.  
  
A stinging bolt lashes me, leaving a faint scar through the ripped leather against my collarbone. It's nothing an herb or healing spell won't heal. It is then that I grin. His blow has been dealt, and now, it's time for the true fun.  
  
Its split spines have been dangling ever since I slashed them apart. Quickly, I spin around in an arc and level off the spines into little bumps. Taking one in each hand, I stab the Thunder Lizard's left side. It sends out a charge of lightning in pain. I jump back.  
  
Doing a forward flip the second I'm in the air brings me to the other side of the Thunder Lizard. I execute a low sweep, which it tries to dodge by flying, but all of a sudden it collapses in pain, having only tiny stumps in place where the legs used to be. Blood flows in rivulets out of them, and grayish sinews whip through absolutely nothing, except for the streaming flow of blood.  
  
I grin, perhaps cruelly, as I let out the devouring demon waiting inside the axe. It comes out, howling its own sadistic war cry and consumes the Thunder Lizard's wings and coating it with its poisonous spit.  
  
It's cowered down in the ground now, no wings, stumps of legs, no spines, absolutely no defense mechanism except for its lightning. Well, I'm going to stop that too.  
  
It's raising lightning bolts and charges all across what's left of its body, hoping to keep me away. I just walk calmly over to the other side and pick up one of its spines. Moving back, I see the Thunder Lizard's eyes riveted on me, wondering what I'm going to do.  
  
Sighting along the spine, I take careful aim, and fire. The spine buries itself deep in the Thunder Lizard's throat, and it gurgles, eyes bulging out for lack of air. It doesn't matter. It can survive for a little longer. Enough to feel the pain.  
  
Walking back, I hold the axe in both hands, and slice its tail off. It thrashes, and a whimper-like sound rises out of its wide open mouth.  
  
Clenching the fat part of the tail, the one that still has the blood streaming out, flowing over my hands, dripping from my fingernails, I swing it towards it. The Thunder Lizard reacts for a split second, jerking two centimeters away before the bleached bones hit it, a couple little jags in them ripping its purple skin. Lustrous red blood pools, slides off its water-proof skin.  
  
Throwing the tail behind me, the blood splashing a stray monster, who I hear scamper away in fear at seeing the Thunder Lizard's condition. I think it was a Chimera King. Oh well, no matter.  
  
A grin that stretches from each side of my face lights it up. My eyes sparkle with tears of cruel joy. Now is the time to let myself loose. With a bellowing war cry rumbling out finally, I leap, with fingers outstretched.  
  
My fingernails dig into its side, and it shrieks almost voicelessly. More blood is coming out of it while the same thing coats the thing that hurts it. I raise my hand and curl it into a fist, smashing it into the torn flesh moments later, so the muscles will snap. They do.  
  
A faint green tint is in some of the blood, at least the blood coming out of the abdomen area. I can see a light-pinkish brown thing that looks like an intestine. The Thunder Lizard's blacked out. It should be brought back to consciousness before it dies.  
  
Grunting, I piledrive my fist into its chest. My hand cracks against a couple ribs, but it prevails quickly, the rib bones snapping. I instinctively find the heart and clutch it. The Thunder Lizard's eyes open with a snap, and it tries to shriek with this tremendous pain destroying it in its chest. The effort it makes is so great that the spike I drove into its throat rips out of its windpipe, and it manages to emit a final howl of agony before its eyes roll into its head and glaze over.  
  
I pull it out slowly, savoring the mixing of its blood with the scrapes on my knuckles from its bones. Slowly, slowly. I let the end tips of some unbroken ribs graze my hands. The pain feels good.  
  
After what seems an eternity of slow pulling, I extract the heart from the mutilated Thunder Lizard. A mass of pulpy flesh with limp tubes hanging from it. For some unfathomable reason, it's still pulsating, though very weakly. I squeeze it and crush it in my grip. The pulse stops.  
  
Another slow grin slithers its way across my face. This was what I was talking about. My chest plate, hell, every piece of armor on me is streaked with blood. My knuckles are scraped, my palms are grazed. There's an open wound on my collarbone, a tiny piece of white seen through the blood, flesh, and skin. My fingernails look like they have red nail polish on them. My hands are completely covered in blood, still dripping in little droplets. My arms are too. The soles of my boots are soaked with new blood, which mingles with blood from the past.  
  
Using my index finger on my right hand I smear a big line of red across my forehead. Blood already drips from it, and I see a fat drop of red fall in front of my eyes. One splashes into my eye. My tongue catches yet another one, and I swallow it.  
  
Tangy, salty, and a little bit on the bitter side. Very unlike a Grand Golem's pasty, malt-like brown dusty blood.  
  
You say I am insane? Me? No. Or perhaps I am. It won't matter in a short while.  
  
I lick the blood off my fingers.  
  
~Owari~ 


End file.
